Strava Relive breakup official: he said, she said

Both Strava and Relive have made statements on their recent breakup, suggesting that the other was the one that was at fault. According to Relive, they worked with Strava and followed Strava’s recent takedown request – but were blocked from the API nonetheless. Strava said Relive was simply abusing its API.

Bicycle rides recorded in Strava will not, from this point forward, be reported to Relive. Not through the group’s official API, anyway. If Relive wants to gain access to Strava data from now on, they’ll need to get extra creative.

Before now, users would be able to quite easily create an automatically-compiled piece of media based in Relive using their Strava data, GPS, and photos taken during said trip. The final product was both interesting and highly share-friendly. We live in a socially networked in a highly addicted fashion sort of world, after all.

Work was done between the two to fix whatever problems Strava had with how Relive handled user data. Strava said in a statement that “The current version of Relive violates several of the terms that we ask of API partners,” and that “We’ve worked hard with Relive to try to fix this, but they have ultimately chosen not to make the changes needed to honor their agreement.”

The statement from Relive posted a very detailed bit of documentation this week, making the case that it feels like they’re taking crazy pills because this relationship is just bananas. “After launching our first social features, we received a very unexpected message threatening to pull the plug. Given our long-term partnership, we immediately rolled back the changes like they requested,” said a Relive representative.

After working with the company for over three years, Relive suggested that Strava seems to have had a major change of heart about a great many things. Maybe some lawyers jump into the party? “We then tried to call, email, and talk this out with Strava,” said Relive. “No response, except for new ultimatums and threats about our existing features they’ve applauded for years.”

Bummer, for all those involved on the biking end. Users of Relive can still use the service, even without Strava – if they head to the upload page on their desktop or just record their activities straight through the Relive app. They can also continue to use devices from brands like Garmin, Suunto, Polar, or any other partnered group.